Chusovitina: I was given only 5 minutes of podium training

Oksana Chusovitina, the newly elected athlete representative, is pretty unhappy with the new podium training format. She is one of the many athletes and coaches who complained that they were not given enough time to get accustomed to the equipment. Chusovitina believes this lack of time was one of the reasons for the huge amount of injuries at these Worlds. She feels like people in the FIG management do not listen enough to the athletes’ concerns in matters like this one and she hopes to change that.

“Here in Montreal, when I was given 5 minutes on the podium to try my vaults… You know, in five minutes I need to run to and fro in order to try the vault. it’s because of this that people get injured. It’s always been half an hour or 25 minutes for the podium training, six people vaulting together. Here they gave 9 minutes to Japan, 9 minutes to Korea, and to me, since I was alone, the gave five. No one’s happy with the new rules”.

“Yes, we, the athletes, train at home and here we have to compete. But injuries happen because of these seemingly insignificant things, many people don’t recover, don’t come back, and this is very sad. No one explains anything to us, we’re just athletes, we come here, told what to do and that’s it. Now, perhaps, when I’ll get into all the details, I’ll do everything I can [to help the athletes].